Chinese Web Users Frown on Image Ad

The new video advertisement that China rolled out in the U.S. to buff the Asian giant’s image while President Hu Jintao is visiting hasn’t actually been made available yet to the ordinary Chinese people it is supposed to be representing.

Zuma Press

An ad promoting China is shown at Times Square in New York., Jan. 17, 2011. The spot will run 300 times a day until Feb. 14.

But starting Tuesday night, many Chinese Internet users have managed to see the spot through online video sites, and overall they don’t seem to be well-impressed.

The ad has sparked an outpouring of opinion on Sina Weibo, China’s leading Twitter-like microblogging service. Since the video was first posted there late Tuesday night, it has been re-tweeted more than 7,000 times, drawing around 2,000 comments from viewers.

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The ad aroused limited response on China’s news websites. Most major Web portals only published written accounts of the ad from state-run media such as Xinhua, and only scattered comments showed up on the websites of other provincial newspapars.

On Sina Weibo, some viewers applauded the effort to boost China’s image. “Whatever the effectiveness of the publicity or how much it cost to run this in Times Square, I still feel pride of in the Motherland!” said user JF Jianfeng.

Many others, however, responded with doubt and sarcasm. Kai-Fu Lee, who moved to Beijing from the U.S. in 2005 to head Google China before leaving the company in 2009, said: “If they hope to change the Americans’ views of China, they need to rely more on officials who are able to communicate with the American media in a language Americans can understand; on the third-party spokesmen who are objective and credible; on lobbyists based in Washington; and of course on transparent and reasonable behavior. The sort of promotion in this ad won’t have any effect.”

Hong Huang, magazine publisher and celebrity blogger, joked that New Yorkers seeing the ad “will misconstrue it as a rich Chinese restaurant owner from Chinatown doing an ad for himself.”

A sampling of other responses:

“Can this be called a national image ad? I imagine that Americans who watch it will only recognize Yao Ming. They spent that much money [on the ad], but it doesn’t seem like it’ll have any impact.” –Sina Weibo user “iceinjan”

“The poor elites. Americans won’t remember their faces no matter how many times the video is played. It’s like a page completely full of text—the screen was covered with so many famous faces that it lost all focus. It’s a typical promo targeting a Chinese audience that’s familiar with these celebrities. And the heated discussion today proves my point: will the volume of discussion on the promo in the U.S. reach 1% of amount here in China?” –Sina Weibo user Dong Jun, an auction company manager

“Who can tell me how much China Mobile paid to sponsor a shot? When did Chinese designers make it to the world stage? Where is my treasured Beijing Opera and Chinese calligraphy? When will the director (of the promo) talk about the design ideas behind this?” –Yang Xinyun, TV news reporter

“Why not give some publicity to our 77-yuan apartments? Such a great thing–why not promote it? So stupid!” – Sina Weibo user “Shrieking Hawk”

“Exclusively successful people. It seems that China is not the China for common people. And the Chinese sense of value is composed of two characters: fame and money.” - Sina Weibo user “Lao Huo”

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